Brady Campaign Applauds D.C. Gun Ruling

WASHINGTON -- Statement of Brady Center Acting President Dennis Henigan on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruling today in Heller v. District of Columbia:

“Today’s ruling refusing to strike down any of Washington, D.C.’s strong gun laws is a decisive blow to the gun lobby’s extremist claims that there is a right to be armed with AK-47s and large-capacity assault clips.

“This is the same court that struck down D.C.’s handgun ban and laid the foundation for an individual right to a gun in the home for self-defense in the original case brought by Dick Heller. Afterwards, D.C. enacted among the strongest gun laws in the country. Of hundreds of legal challenges to gun laws brought since Heller, this one represented the broadest single attack on a set of gun laws. The D.C. Circuit relied heavily on evidence submitted by the Brady Center on the dangers of assault weapons and assault clips to reach its decision. The same court that originally struck down the D.C. handgun ban has now affirmed that strong gun laws are entirely consistent with the Second Amendment.”

“The court recognized that gun registration is constitutional and thoroughly rejected gun lobby claims that there is a constitutional right to be armed with semi-automatic assault weapons. We are confident that the trial court will uphold all of D.C.’s other strong gun laws, such as limits on bulk sales of handguns and rifle registration, after the facts are more fully developed in court.”

The Brady Center’s Legal Action Project report, Hollow Victory, comprehensively analyzes the more than 400 challenges to gun laws filed by the gun lobby and gun criminals in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's rulings in D.C. v. Heller and McDonald v. City of Chicago, and finds that the courts have overwhelmingly rejected these challenges. Click here to read the report.